Non-finite Relative Clauses
Certain non-finite clauses (also called infinitive or participial clauses or phrases) can be classified as relative clauses. These include:
- infinitive clauses with an explicit relative pronoun (generally used with a fronted preposition): She is the woman on whom to rely.
- infinitive clauses having a zero object argument and qualifying an element that serves as the antecedent of that argument: He is the man to beat Ø; She is the woman to rely on Ø.
- past participle clauses having a zero object argument and qualifying an element that serves as the antecedent of that argument: The body found Ø here yesterday has now been identified. These have been called "reduced object relative passive clauses", and have been an object of psycholinguistic research in the area of sentence processing; see Reduced relative clause: Non-finite types.
- present participle clauses having a zero subject argument and qualifying an element that serves as the antecedent of that argument: The man Ø sitting on the bank was fishing. These are least likely to be classified as relative clauses.
Read more about this topic: English Relative Clauses
Famous quotes containing the word relative:
“Man may have his opinion as to the relative importance of feeding his body and nourishing his soul, but he is allowed by Nature to have no opinion whatever as to the need for feeding the body before the soul can think of anything but the body’s hunger.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)